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Pondering the State of the World Too Much

I went to the bookstore today and walking through I felt like I was gliding through a cacophony of voices. It wasn’t the sounds of people around me but the books themselves. Everyone is an expert on everything and they want all of us to know it. I wonder if anyone picks up a book proposing something they absolutely did not believe in and then the book completely changed their mind. I doubt it. More likely they had no perspective or a leaning toward the book’s argument and the book just solidified them in their beliefs.

Humans, humans everywhere. We take so much of society for granted. No one even questions it. For example, we accept the hierarchies placed upon us. Some human says you must pay to park in a certain place, you pay to park there. Our entire society is arranged this way. Obviously some of it is necessary for humans to interact. But sometimes I wonder why humans are so willing to go along with how things are and to even perpetuate how things are. We arrange ourselves in a certain manner and do not question it.

I have been pondering the state of the world too much lately. I keep wondering: how will people connect if there is no electricity? How will people connect if there are no phones? How will a world made of 9 billion people exist when the only means of communication is the same as that which was available in 1850 (or 1750, when there was no postal service)? What if we no longer have motorized transport in most of the world? We would be stuck with our legs, or bicycles. Where would all of this leave us, back in some-distant-past BC because so few people know how to ride horses or use animals to pull wagons? In this, the third world has already outpaced us. How quickly the strands of our amorphously tangled web of connection would fall away if there was nothing to give us the power to connect with one other as we do in the modern world.

Human “leaders” seem hell bent on war and destruction, and it is not implausible their actions could lead to nuclear war. Fukishima is leaking and we can’t stop it. Weather patterns have changed so drastically it is not just possible, but highly probable that many major catastrophic weather events will occur in the near future.

Disconnection is genuinely possible, disconnection on a scale not fathomable to most people. If we could not pick up the phone and call, if we could not turn on the computer and email or Facebook or tweet, if we could not mail a letter, if we could not drive our cars, if we could not take a bus, or train, or streetcar, or plane, what then? Would we walk across the street to the people who live around us because this was the only option left?

I can imagine human connection turning into a grand scale game of telephone, with each of us passing a letter to our neighbor to pass to their neighbor, on and on through various channels until our messages reached our loved ones. And what of those messages? How quickly we would turn to that which is really important. Perhaps catastrophic disconnection could lead to more meaningful communication.

How tragic.

I hate apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic tales (although Take Shelter was handily one of the best films I have seen). I am not the doomsday sort, nor am I a frightened rabbit, quivering at reality and worrying over every possible scenario. Sometimes I leave my house unlocked. I don’t carry mace. I pay attention, and I don’t run with headphones, but neither do I live as if danger is lurking around every corner.

However, lately I have been afraid. It isn’t a dithering fear. Rather it is a deep in my bones realization that the planet is in real danger on many fronts, and in some instances we are past the point of doing anything about it. For the situations that can be changed, those who can, won’t. They have their own agendas and damn the world, they’re pursuing those agendas. It isn’t lost on me that many of the consequences we are now suffering and will suffer are the result of these same few ignoring what is best for most and taking what they will, but that is beside the point. We are here and even the most drastic action won’t undo what has been done, and drastic action isn’t even a possibility because those who need to won’t get on board.

Which all leads me back to wondering how we will all connect when 95 percent of the means used to connect are gone. How will we get to those people we love the most? I can foresee a scenario where a person decides to set out on a journey across their state to go meet up with family, only to arrive at their destination and discover their family had left to go find them. This of course assumes the powers that be will let people travel away from their homes on foot or bike.

I sound like a doomsayer, but we must plan for this eventuality. The risks are real. We must all set up a plan with our loved ones, even if they are just across the city, but especially if they are across the state or the nation, or even further. Decide between you who will be the one to travel (if travel is possible) and who will stay put. Make friends with your neighbors because if there were a real emergency, they would be the people closest to you and the ones you would most likely get to speak to. Stock up on pencils and paper maps. Imagine life without the ability to plug in, literally or figuratively.

I wonder if at some point in the not too distant future if humans will be angry that humans today squandered, absolutely squandered, this planet and our lives, the lives of every living thing. You were able to buy a dollar and 99 cent spatula made of plastic and now the world is uninhabitable. It’s this billions and billions and billions of times over. Some person wanted a green lawn and now people haven’t enough water to drink. Someone wanted a Hummer and now the ozone is gone. On and on and on. Maybe it won’t matter that people can’t connect. There won’t be anyone left because the planet is uninhabitable.

The main thought that keeps running through my mind is that humanity should be ashamed. It isn’t, but it should be.

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One thought on “Pondering the State of the World Too Much”

Very sobering to read you today, Lara. Felt like telling you to lighten up (for your own sake, not anyone else’s. Hopefully I’m not that rude.) But, then most of what you have said it so bloody, damnably true that we should not try to suppress it. Dunno what the answer is. And it’s bloody hard to imagine – as you suggest – that anything worthwhile is going to change any time soon. So, I leave with a heavy heart but thank you for being a voice brave enough to remind us of the utter necessity for change. I hope my kids can do better than me and my cohort.
(But don’t stop smiling – that’s surrender!)